Science and Human Behavior

Skinner argues that religious practices operate through the manipulation of contingencies and reinforcement. He links superstition and magic to basic behavioral processes, noting accidental pairings can blur the line between superstition and fact. Religion emerges as a systematized extension of such processes, where agents claim the ability to mediate good or bad outcomes, often tied to supernatural authority. These claims range from the practices of a tribal medicine man to the structures of organized churches. At its core, religion functions by classifying behavior as “moral” or “immoral,” with Heaven and Hell serving as ultimate positive and negative reinforcers.

Techniques of religious control are wide-ranging, including threats of punishment, promises of absolution, the manipulation of deprivation and satiation, censorship, ritual, and emotional conditioning through art, music, and pageantry. Religious agencies often overlap with governmental, economic, or educational systems, amplifying their power. The scope of behavior controlled under religion is broad and often more stringent than ethical or legal systems. Skinner suggests that religious agencies typically reinforce altruism and self-denial while discouraging selfish or primarily reinforced behaviors.

Skinner also considers the behavior of religious agents, suggesting some are motivated by group reinforcement, while others may be driven by “reaction formation,” in which their own tendencies toward sin strengthen their commitment to enforcing religious control. As with other agencies, religion is subject to limits and countercontrol: Competing institutions, skepticism of its claims, or outright opposition can restrict its reach. Still, its unique claim to supernatural authority makes it one of the most powerful forms of social control. Skinner suggests that justifications for religious practice—whether in terms of salvation, virtue, or the glory of God—function like ethical or governmental appeals to “justice” or “freedom”: He argues that they are cultural principles used to support practices, not explanations grounded in behavioral science.

Skinner situates psychotherapy within the broader framework of controlling agencies, treating it as a response to the by-products of excessive or inconsistent social, governmental, and religious control. He identifies three typical reactions to such control—escape, revolt, and passive resistance—each of which creates difficulties for both the individual and the group. Excessive punishment, he argues, produces both behavioral withdrawal and a range of emotional by-products such as fear, anxiety, rage, and depression, leading to psychosomatic illness.

Psychotherapy, then, is cast as a corrective agency, aiming to mitigate the damaging effects of aversive control. Skinner traces how punishment distorts operant behavior, producing maladaptive repertoires such as substance dependency, compulsions, excessive restraint, defective stimulus control, and self-destructive behavior. What traditional psychiatry has called “neurosis,” he reframes as the cumulative result of environmental histories rather than inner psychic causes. Against the Freudian emphasis on repressed wishes and unconscious conflicts, Skinner insists that, “it is not an inner cause of behavior but the behavior itself which […] must be ‘got out of the system’” (375).

The therapist’s role, in Skinner’s account, is defined primarily though the technique of the “nonpunishing audience.” By withholding criticism or punishment, the therapist creates conditions under which previously suppressed behavior can reemerge and undergo extinction. This process reduces the aversive self-stimulation of guilt, shame, or fear, while enabling the patient to adopt new, more effective repertoires of self-control. Therapy, however, remains a relatively weak form of control compared to religion or government, largely relying on verbal processes, positive reinforcement, and the gradual shaping of behavior.

Skinner contrasts psychotherapy with religious and governmental agencies, highlighting its fundamental opposition to punishment-based methods. While therapists may reinforce behavior that aligns with social norms, their rejection of aversive control often brings them into conflict with traditional authorities. He also critiques what he regards as the explanatory fictions common in psychoanalytic and medical traditions, such as “neurosis” or “pent-up emotion,” which obscure the actual environmental causes of behavior. Instead, he presents a functional analysis in which maladaptive behaviors are understood as rational outcomes of reinforcement histories, correctable by altering environmental conditions.

Lastly, he addresses the professional dimension of psychotherapy, noting that therapists are themselves reinforced by economic exchange, cultural approval for helping others, or the personal satisfaction of exerting control. While acknowledging the potential misuse of power within therapeutic practice, he emphasizes that countercontrol emerges through professional ethics and standards.

Skinner shifts to examining how economic systems function as mechanisms of behavioral control. He notes that wages, goods, and credit act as reinforcers that make labor exchange possible. Reinforcement with money is similar to operant conditioning: Behavior is shaped by contingencies of payment, promises, and agreements.

Skinner analyzes wage schedules using behavioral models. Piecework or commission pay resembles a fixed-ratio schedule, often producing high rates of work but also risks of exhaustion or discouragement when ratios are too high. Payments by day or month parallels fixed-interval schedules, requiring supplementary supervision to prevent reduced productivity. To correct these shortcomings, industries employ combined or incentive schedules, or introduce bonuses and variable rewards, which function much like experimental reinforcement systems.

He extends this analysis to the economic value of labor. Work has aversive properties offset by the reinforcement of wages, with both employers and employees engaging in exchanges based on balancing positive and negative consequences. Money serves as a generalized reinforcer and allows diverse activities to be measured on a single scale, though this scale is not intrinsic but rooted in behavioral contingencies. The same logic extends to goods: Value arises from the reinforcing properties of objects relative to deprivation, supply, and purchasing power. Buying and selling, bargaining, and gambling are portrayed as behaviors shaped by histories of reinforcement schedules, and conditioned stimuli such as advertisements or “near misses” in slot machines.

Traditional theory often abstracts away from behavior into explanatory fictions like “Economic Man” or concepts such as “utility” and “wealth.” Skinner argues that these abstractions conceal the behavioral contingencies underpinning economic data. He identifies economic agencies as those who possess and deploy wealth, often collectively as “capital.” Like other forms of control, economic power faces countercontrol from ethical groups, religious institutions, and governments, which place limits on exploitative practices through laws, taxes, and regulations.

Skinner frames education as the deliberate establishment of repertoires that will benefit both the individual and society. Families, trades, religious groups, and governments all act as educational agencies, but formal institutions specialize in the use of artificial reinforcers—grades, diplomas, honors—that temporarily shape behavior until natural reinforcements take hold later in life. Punishment, historically central to schooling, has waned, but as corporal discipline fades, subtler aversive controls persist in the threat of failure or dismissal.

Educational institutions supplement reinforcers with entertainment, visual aids, and opportunities for “real” engagement, anticipating the natural consequences that will eventually sustain knowledge. Progressive education emphasizes this shift, replacing artificial contingencies with functional reinforcement as quickly as possible. The resulting behaviors include skill—defined as repertoires maintained by natural outcomes, such as producing a painting—and knowledge—defined as the probability of responding appropriately to discriminative stimuli. Knowledge also enables instruction and extends into the capacity to “think” by manipulating variables to solve problems.

Skinner stresses that education cannot rely solely on producing correct answers but must establish repertoires of problem-solving and self-control that persist beyond the presence of the teachers. However, educational institutions face limits—they are constrained by those who fund them, by the curricula imposed, and by competing agencies.